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Reminiscences ot a Pioneer in the Rock 
River Country 

By Edwin Delos Coe 

EilitdV ot r)>f Wditewatt-r Rcizistcr 



[From Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1907] 



MADJSON 
STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN 



Reminiscences of a Pioneer in the Rock 
River Country 

By Edwin Delos Coe 

Editor of the Wliite water Register 



[From Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1907] 



MADISON 

STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OK WISCONSIN 

1 90S 



.„:'n 10 V, 



Rock River Pioneering 



Reminiscences of a Pioneer in 
the Rock River Country 



By Edwin Delos Coe 

My father left bis old home in Oneida County, Xew York, 
in June, 1839, a young man in his twenty-fourth year. The 
beauty and fertility of the Kock Eiver valley, in Wisconsin, 
had been widely proclaimed by participants in the Black Hawk 
War and in the glowing reports of Government engineers. In 
fact, the latter declared it to be a very Canaan of promise. As 
a consequence, hundreds of young people, restless and ambitious, 
and very many older ones whom the panic of the late 30's had 
separated from their business moorings, turned their thoughts 
and then their steps toward the new promised land. 

When my father was rowed ashore from the steamer at Mil- 
waukee, he could have taken up "government land" within the 
present limits of that city, but the bluffs and swamps of the 
future metropolis had no charms for him compared with the 
vision he had in mind of the Kock River country. So he 
crossed Milwaukee River on a ferry at the foot of Wisconsin 
Street, walked out on a sidewalk quavering on stilts until solid 
ground was reached at Third Street, and then struck the trail 
for the west. Xot many miles out he passed Byron Kilbourn, 
with his surveyors, locating the line of the canal which he was 
to construct from Milwaukee to the foot of the rapids at Water- 
town, and through which Mississippi steamboats were expected 
to pass in a few years. But alas! only one mile of the canal 
was ever completed. For a time it remained a useful factor 

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as a waterway in the industrial system of ^[ilwaukeo, but a 
few years ago it was filled up and is now an active business 
street. And no steamboat ever ascended the Kock 
from the big river farther than Jciferson, Along the 
shore of Pewaukee Lake, the traveler met a wolt" 
which bristled and snarled, but at last surrendered the right of 
way before the superior bluff w^hich was put up against him, 
backed by a "big stick." That night he stayed with a friend 
named Terry who had come West the year before and pre- 
empted a piece of land on the cast shore of the llock, about 
seven miles al)ove Watertown. The next morning he saw on 
the opposite bank a gently rising slope, covered with stately 
maples and oaks ; beneath Avere the grass and flowers of mid 
June, and the swift flowing river, clear as a spring brook, was 
in front, making the scene one of entrancing beauty. It was 
fully equal to his highest expectations, and he never rested 
until he had secured title to that particular block of land. 

Father at once prepared to build a log house, and, after a 
few days, the neighborhood was invited to the raising. Some 
came eight and ton miles, and a big laugh went around when 
it was found that logs a foot and a half and two feet in dia- 
meter had been cut for the house. Four large ones were rolled 
together for a foundation, and then the inexperienced young 
man was told that for a house he needed to cut logs half as 
large, and they would return in a week and raise them. This 
they did, showing the kindly, heljiful spirit of the early set- 
tlers. 

In August my mother came and brought the household fur- 
niture from their Oneida County home, together with a year's 
provision. The trij) from ?ililwaukee to their log house, 
nearly forty miles, took nearly three days by ox team. She 
was delighted and ha])py with the building and its surround- 
ings, and never faltered in her love for that first home in the 
West. A barrel of ]:)ork was among the supplies she had 
brought, and people came as far as twenty miles to b^ a little 
of it, so tired were they of fresh meat from the woods, and 

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Rock River Pioneering 

lish from the river; and they never went away empty hande<l, 
so long as it lasted. 

They came as I have said, in 1839, and I the year follow- 
ing. There is a vagne, misty period at the beginning of every 
life, as memory rises from mere nothingness to fidl strength, 
when ii is not easy to say whether the things remembered may 
not have been heard from the lips of others. But I distinctly re- 
call some very early events, and particularly the disturbance 
created by my year-old brother, two years younger than my- 
self, when he screamed with pain one evening and hehl his 
bare foot up, twisted to one side. My mother was ill in bed, 
and the terrified maid summoned my father from outside, with 
the story that the baby's ankle was out of joint. He hurried 
in, gave it one look and being a hasty, impetuous man, he de- 
clared, "Yes, the child's ankle is out of joint; I must go for 
a doctor." And in another moment he would have been off on 
a seven-mile tramp through the dark to Waterto^vn. But the 
level-headed woman on the bed called out, "Wait a minute; 
bring me the child and a candle;" and a minute later she had 
discovered a little sliver which pricked him when he set his 
foot down, and extricated it between thumb and finger. 
"There," said she, "I don't think you need walk to Water- 
town tonight." 

Indians were so numerous that I don't remember when they 
first came out of the haze into my consciousness, but probably 
in my third year. They were Winnebago and Potawatomi, the 
river being a common inheritance of both tribes. In the 
winter of 1839-40, about thirty families of the former tribe 
camped for several weeks opposite our home and were very so- 
ciable and friendly. Diligent hunters and trappers, they ac- 
cumulated fully a hundred dollars worth of otter, beaver, bear, 
deer, and other skins. But a trader came up from Waterto^vn 
in the spring and got the whole lot in exchange for a four-gal- 
lon keg of whisky. That was a wild night that followed. 
Some of the noisiest came over to our house, and when denied 
admittance threatened to knock the door down, but my father 
told them he had two gnns ready for them, and they finally 

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left. He afterwards said that lie depended more on a heavy- 
hickory chib Avhieh lie had on hand than on the gams — it could 
be fired faster. 

An ngly sqnaw whose nose had been bitten off years before 
in a fight, stabbed her brother that night, because he refused 
her more whisky. He had, according to custom, been left on 
guard, and was entirely sober. The next day the Indians hor- 
rified my mother by declaring that they should cut the squaw 
into inch pieces if her brother died. They went down to Lake 
Koshkonong two days later, but he died the first day out. 
The squaw^ escaped and lived a lonely life for years after, be- 
ing known up and down the river as "Old Mag." 

At any time of the year we were liable to receive visits from 
Indians passing to and fro between Lakes Horicon and 
Koshkonong. They would come into the house without cere- 
mony further than staring into the windows before entering. 
Being used only to town life at the East, my mother was 
afraid of them, but she always carried a bold face and would 
never give them bread, which they always demanded, imless 
she could readily spare it. One summer afternoon, when she 
had finislied her housework and had sat down to sew, half a 
dozen Indians, male and female, suddenly bolted in and clam- 
ored for bread. She shook her head and told them she had 
none for them. When she came West she had brought yeast 
cakes which, by careful renewal, she kept in succession until 
the family home was broken up in 1880. Upon the afternoon 
referred to, she had a large pan of yeast cakes drying before 
the fireplace. Seeing them, the Indians scowled at her, called 
her a lying woman, and made a rush for the cakes, each one 
taking a huge l)ite. Those familiar with the article know how 
bitter is the mixture of raw meal, hops, and yeast, and so will 
not wonder that presently a look of horror came over the In- 
dians' faces and that then they sputtered the imsavorv stuff 
out all over the newly-scrubbed floor. My mother used to say 
that if they had killed her she could not have kept from laugh- 
ing. They looked very angry at first, but finally concluding 
that they had not been poisoned and had only "sold" them- 

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g 



selves, they huddled together and went out chattering and 
laughing, leaving my mother a good share of her day's work 
to do over again. 

One day I saw a big Indian shake her by the shoulder be- 
cause she wouldn't give him bread. She was ironing at the time 
and threatened him with a hot flat iron till he hurried out. 
Another came in one warm summer afternoon, shut the door 
behind him, and leaned against it, glowering at her. For once 
she was thoroughly frightened. He had with him a tomahawk, 
having a hollow handle and head, that could be used as a pipe. 
However, her wits did not desert her. Seeing the cat sleeping 
peacefully in the corner, she cried, ''How did that cat get in 
here!" and catching up the broom she chased pussy around 
till she reached the door, when seizing the heavy iron latch 
she pulled it wide open, seiidiug Mr. Indian into the middle 
of the room ; she then pushed the door back against the wall 
aud set a chair against it. Ihe Indian stood still for i\ min- 
ute, then uttered a grunt and took himself off, probably think- 
ing she w^as too dangerous a person for him to attempt to 
bully. 

The Indians used to offer for sale venison, fish, and maple 
sugar, but the line was always drawn on the latter, for it was 
commonly reported that they strained the sap through their 
blankets. And you should have seen their blankets! About 
1846 a company of civilized Oneidas, some of whom my father 
had known in the East, camped near by and manufactured a 
large number of handsome and serviceable baskets. From 
wild berries they would make dyes that never faded, and print 
them on the baskets wnth stamps cut from potatoes. Some of 
their designs were quite artistic. A small basket and a rat- 
tle which they gave my year-old sister showed their good will. 

I soon learned to have no fear of the tribesmen, although 
sometimes a fleet of fifty canoes would be in sight at once, 
passing down the river to Koshkonong; but the first Germans 
who came to our parts nearly scared the life out of me. Their 
heavy beards, long coats, broad-visored caps, and arm-long 
pipes, made me certain that nothing less than a fat boy of fi,ve 

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would satisfy their appetites; and wheuever they appeared I 
would hunt my mother. They had bought a considerable tract 
of land a few miles east of Watertown and about five miles 
from our place, and always wanted to know of us the road 
thither. The result was just such a "jabber match" as could 
be expected where neither side knew the other's tongue; but 
by pointing and motioning my mother was always able to di- 
rect them. Sometimes they wished to come in and make tea 
or coffee on our stove, and eat the luncheon of bread and 
meat that they had brought across the water. They would 
then always urge their food upon me, so I came to like their 
black bread very much and soon revised my first estimate of 
their character. All those people cut fine farms out of the 
heavy timber and died rich. 

The first settlers were mostly Americans, from New York 
and jSTew England ; but before leaving the old farm we used to 
hear of English, Irish, Dutch, Norwegian, and Welsh settle- 
ments. The latter people enveloped and overflowed our own 
particular co^miiuriity and came t.) form a good portion of the 
population. The well-known Rev. eJenkin Lloyd Jones, of Chi- 
cago, his brother, a regent of the State University, whose recent 
death is so widely lamented, and their sisters, who teach the 
Hillside Home School near Spring Green, lived in an adjoin- 
ing school district. I myself learned to count up to sixty in 
Welsh, and to curve my tongue around sonu^ of their strange 
syllables. 

Besides the numerous nationalities on this front edge of ad- 
vancing settlement, there were people of many and diverse in- 
dividualities — the uneasy, the uulncky. the adv(niturous, the 
men without money but full of hope, the natural hunters, the 
trappers, the lovers of woods and solitudes, and occasionally 
one who had left his country for his country's good; all these 
classes Avere represented. But on the whole the frontier's peo- 
]>le were an honest, kindly, generous class, ready to help in 
trouble or need of any kind. 

If there was sickness, watchers by the bedside and harvest- 
ers in the field were promptly forthcoming. If a new house 

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Rock River Pioneering 

or baru was to be raided, every available man caiue. It' a 
cow was mired, and such was often the case, her owner easily 
got all the help he wanted. Ihiskiiiii,' and loii'ging and (luilt- 
ing b(H>s were coiumon, and in the aiitunni there were bees for 
candle-dipping, when the family supply of candles would be 
made for a year; and all such events wonld of course be fv»l- 
lowed by a supper, and perhaps a frolic. Visits among the 
the Avonien folk were all-day aifairs; if the husbands were in- 
vited, it would be of an evening, and the call then would last 
till midnight with a supper at ten. 'Jliere was a world of 
comfort and good cheer in those forest homes. [ doubt if 
any child in modern palaces enjoys happier hours than were 
mine on winter evenings, when resting (tu the broad stone 
hearth in front of the big fire place, with its blazing four- 
foot log, the dog on one side and the cat on the other, my 
father told stories that had to be repeated as the stock ran 
out, and I was gradually lulled to sleep by the soft thunder 
of my mother's spinning wheel. What cfudd be more lux- 
urious for any youngster ^ 

I remember that when I was about six I saw my first 
apple. Half of it came to me, and I absorbed it as if to 
the manor born. What a revelation it was to a lad who could 
be satisfied with choke cherries and crab apples! In those 
times, when a visitor called it was common to bring out a dish 
of well washed turnips, with plate and case knife, and he 
could slice them up or scrape them as he chose ; and they did 
not go bad. The woods abounded in wild fruits, which the 
women made the most of for the winter season. Berries, 
grapes, ])lums, and crab apples were all utilized. The latter 
were especially delicious for preserves. Taken raw oflF the 
tree, the boy who did it could not get his face back into line 
the sanje day; but he would eat them. However, pumpkins 
were our main reliance for present and future pies and sauce; 
such pumpkins do not grow now in these latter days. There 
were two sugar bushes on our place, and a good supply of 
maple sugar was put up every spring. ^Fany other daintisd 
were added to our regular menu, and a boy with such a cook 

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for a mother as I had, needed no sympathy from anyone the 
whole world round. 

The river was three himdred feet wide opposite onr house, 
and about two feet deep, so teams could be driven across at 
ordinary stages, but foot passengers depended on our boat, a 
large "'dugout." I remember how beautiful it was, when 
first scooped out from a huge basswood log, clean, white, and 
SA\'eet-smelling. Strangers and neighbors alike would call 
across, "bring over the boat;" and if they were going from 
our side they would take it over and leave the job of holler- 
ing to us. At early live years of age I could pole it around 
very nicely. One day, when I was first trusted to go in the 
boat alone, a stranger called over and as my father was 
busy, he told me to go after him. The man expressed much 
VFonderment, and some hestitancy to trusting himself to the 
skill and strength of a bare-footed boy of five; but I assured 
him I was a veteran at the business. He finally got in very 
gingerly, and sat down flat on the bottom. All the way over 
he kept Avondering at and praising my work until I was ready 
to melt with mingled embarrassment and delight. 

At the shore he asked me unctiously how much he should 
pay. "Oh nothing," I said. "But let me pay you. I'd 
be glad to," said he. "Oh ! no, we never take pay" I replied, 
and dug my toes into the sand, not knowing how to get out 
of the scrape, yet well pleased at his high estimate of my 
service. All the time he was plunging down first into one 
pocket of his barn-dv)or trousers and then the other, till at 
last lie fished out an old "bungtown" cent, which with much 
graciousness and pomposity he pressed ujion me, until my 
feeble refusals were overcome. I took the coin and scam- 
pered away so fast that I must have been invisible in the dust 
I raised. Showing it to my father, he said I ought not ta 
have taken it ; but I explained how helpless I had been, and 
repeated word for w-oi-d A\hat the man had said and, uninten- 
tionally, somewhat copied his tone and manner. The twin- 
kle in my father's eye showed that he understood. That cop- 
per was my first-earned money; if it had only been put out 

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at compound interest, I ought, if the mathematicians are right, 
to be now living in oiium cum dignitale, perhaps. 

Steve Peck was one of the most notable of the marked 
characters above hinted at. He was a roistering blade, who 
captained all the harumscarums of the section. Peck was a 
surveyor and had helped at the layiug out of Milwaukee. 
Many were the stories told of his escapades, luit space will 
not permit of their rehearsal here. He had selected a choice 
piece of land and built a good house; then he induced Chris- 
tine Mai tl and, daughter of an Aberdeen ex-merchant of aris- 
tocratic family but broken fortune, who had sought a new 
chance in the wilds of Wisconsin, to share them with him. 
But wife and children could not hold him to a settled life, 
and he sold out one day to a German immigrant, gave his 
wife a few dollars and disappeared, not to be seen or heard of 
in those parts again. The wife's parents had both died and 
their second daughter retnrued to Scotland, taking the young- 
er of the two little girls who had come to the Peck home. 
Mrs. Peck remained, caring for the other and finally married 
again. Her little Jennie grew to fine womanhood, and was 
for years the efficient forewoman of the famous Sherman 
farm near Burnett Junction; she now lives in comfortable re- 
tirement in Chicago. Her sister, following the fortunes of 
her aunt and foster-mother, Ag-nes Maitland, who married a 
Scottish laird, enjoys all the pleasures of wealth and aristo- 
cratic life in the old world. Thus even the frontier had its 
romances. 

Another character was a man named Xeedham, wdio also 
was somewhat of a mystery. The women considered that he 
had been "crossed in love." He affected a sombre style, 
rather imitating the manners and habits of the Indians. 
His cabin was near the river, and he Avas a constant hunter. 
Many times when playing by the shore I would become con- 
scious of a strange, noiseless presence, and looking up would 
see Needham ]>a(]dling by, swift and silent. It always gave 
me the shudders and sent me to the house. One day, on com- 
ing home from school, I saw a great platter of red meat on 

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the table. I asked who had killed the beef ; it was a practice 
to share the meat with the neighbors, whenever a large ani- 
mal was killed, taking pay in kind. I was told it was not 
beef, and being unable to guess Avas at last informed that it 
was bear meat, which Mr. Xeedham had left. As he had 
killed the animal near where I hunted the cows every night, 
the news gave me a sensation. 

Uncle Ben Piper, the only man in the community with 
gray hair, kept tavern and was an oracle on nearly all sub- 
jects. He was also postmaster, and a wash-stand drawer 
served as post office. It ex)st twenty-five cents in those timea 
to pass a letter between Wisconsin and the East. Postage 
did not have to be prepaid, and I have known my father to go 
several days before he could raise the requisite cash to re- 
deem a letter whicli he had heard awaited him in the wash- 
stand drawer, for Uncle Ben was not allowed to accept farm 
produce or even bank script for postage. Two of his grand- 
sons now do a good share of the grocery business at Madison. 

An Englishuian named Pease, who lived near us, had 
"wheels." He thought the Free Masons and the women were 
in league to end liis life. Every night lie ranged his gun 
and farm tools beside his bed, to helj) ward off the attack that 
he constantly expected. Xothing coidd induce him to eat 
any food that a Avoman had prepared. In "changing work'' 
with my father, which often occurred, he would bring his 
own Inncheou and oat it l)y tlie fire during mealtime. But 
after my sister was born, he refused to enter the house; he 
told the neighbors that "women were getting too thick up at 
Cowe's." Pease had nicknames for all the settlers but one, 
and wliile very polite to their faces, ho always applied his 
nicknames in their absence. 

A man named Rugg lost caste with his neighbors becau3C 
he dug and used a potato pit in an Indian mound from which 
he had thrown ont a large nundier of human l)ones. Some 
of the bones were of gigantic size. 

There were many good hunters among the settlers; the 
Sniiili brofluTs scorned to shoot a bird or sqnirrel except 

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D 

through th(> licaJ. Jf there were sickness in the family of any 
neighbor, the Smiths saw that partridges, quail, or pigeons, 
properly shot, were supplied. 

Another Smith was a hee hunter, and a very successful one, 
too. Those were the days Avhen the beautiful passenger pigeons 
at limes seemed to till the woods and the sky. Deer were very 
abundant ; 1 have seen them eating hay with my father's cows ; 
and in the spring and fall seasons the river was covered with 
wild ducks and geese. 

Occasionally, preachers would come and hold service in the 
school-house, but Watertown was the main reliance for supply- 
ing religious needs. Rev. Moses Ordway, whose portrait hangs 
in the Museum of the State Historical Library at jMadison, 
was our most notable visitor. He was a man of great ability, 
energetic, wilful, but large-hearted. I am told that he officiated 
at my baptism. Xevertheless I was a little afraid of him, for 
he had a blulf way that I did not then fully understand. 
Churches which he established at Green Bay, Milwaukee, Beaver 
Dam, and other points are still flourishing. He had two sons; 
one of them, Hon. David S. Ordway, an eminent la\A^er, died 
two years ago at ^lihvaukee; the younger, Capt. James Ord- 
way, of the 5th Wisconsin llegiment, was killed at the top 
of the Confederate parapet at Rappahannock. 

Rev. W. G. Miller, a Methodist missionary, used to range 
from Green Bay southward. He held occasional meetings at 
the Piper\'ille school house. He wrote a very interesting book 
entitled, TJiiilij Years in the Iluierancij (Milwaukee, 1875). 

Two events in my seventh year left a strong impression up- 
on me. The first was an address by a colored man named Lewis 
Washington, a runaway slave, who had a natural gift of ora- 
tory and made many speeches in this State. I was so curious 
to see a genuine black man that I got too close to him when 
he was in the convulsion of putting on his overcoat, and caught 
a considerable thump. ]^o harm was done, but he apologized 
very earnestly. I have read that his campaigiiing of the State 
vras quite effective. 

The other occurrence was the visit to Watertown of Herr 

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Dreisbacli with his famous menagerie. Our indulgent father 
took my brother aud myself and a neighbor's daughter, whof-e 
own daughter is now the wife of a leading Madison divine, to 
see the ''great instructive exhibition." It took our ox-team 
three hours to make the seven miles, and the elephant's foot- 
prints by the bridges, and the other impedimenta of the great 
show, which we passed, carried our excitement, which had been 
cruelly growing for three weeks, well nigh up to an exploding 
climax. I was told not to lose my ticket, or I could not get in ; 
and when the ticket taker seized hold of it, I held on until he 
finally yelled angrily, "Let go, you little cuss!" whereupon my 
father came to his rescue. The show on the whole was very 
satisfactory, except for the color of Columbus, the fine old ele- 
phant, which for some reason, probably from the show bills on 
the barns, I had expected to be of a greenish tint. I also had 
supposed that the lion would drag his chariot at least half a 
mile, with the driver in heroic pose, instead of merely two cars' 
length. Herr Dreisbaeh afterwards showed on Rock Prairie, 
in the open country, a few miles east of Janesville. People 
came from great distances to attend, even from as far as Bara- 
boo, sometimes camping out two nights each way. 

Our first public edifice was a log school-house about twenty 
feet square. It was on the opposite side of the river, nearly a 
mile distant, but I began to attend school before I was fully five 
years old. A Miss Shumway taught the first two summers; 
the third we had a Miss Mendel, daughter of Deacon Mendel, 
a famous Abolitionist at Waukesha. One of the things I re- 
member of her most distinctly is, that she used to hang a five 
franc piece, tied with blue ribbon, around the neck of the 
scholar who had "left off at the head." I was occasionally 
favored, but my mother's satisfaction was greatly modified by 
her fear that I would lose the coin while taking it back the next 
day. ]\ry last "school ma'am" was a Miss Parmeter. 

l^ear the school lived a family named Babcock, with four 
well-gTown boys. One of them used often to come over at noon 
to see one of the teachers. One noon, on running to the school 
room after something that I wanted, I was horrified to see my 

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loved teacher struggling to prevent the young follow from kiss- 
ing her. I felt very sorry for her, and on going home promptly 
reported the outrage to my mother. She evidently did not ap- 
prove, but did not make as much of a demonstration over it as 
I had expected. I douht now, if the teacher was as greatly in. 
need of my sympathy as I then thought. The Babcocks all 
went to the v/ar, as I am told, and one of them, Walter, be 
came colonel of his regiment. He came home to be fatally 
and mysteriously shot one night on his way to his room in Chi- 
cago; the why and how were never revealed. These teachers 
probably could not have passed a normal school examination. 
but they could do what our graduates now cannot do — that is, 
make and mend a quill pen. Those were all the pens we 
had, and many a time have I chased our geese to get a new 
quill. The teachers ])atientlj guided our wobbling ideas 
from the alphabet to cube root. The lessons over, we were 
told to ''toe the crack," and "make obeisance," and 
were then pu.t through our paces in the fields of general 
knowledge. I still remember, from their drilling, the country, 
territory, county, and town in which we lived ; that James K. 
Polk was president, that George M. Dallas was vice-president, 
and that Henry Dodge was governor. What ancient history 
that now seems ! 

The winter after I was six years old I went to a school 
taught by a fine young man named Martin Piper, a relative of 
Uncle Ben's. The next summer he enlisted in the Mexican 
War with another of our young neighbors, John Bradshaw. I 
saw the volunteers from Watertown filling two wagons that car- 
ried them to Milwaukee, and I could not keep the tears bade, 
for I feared I should never see John and Martin again. And 
so it was; they both perished at Vera Cruz. 

My last winter's school was taught by my father. I re- 
member that we nsed to cross the river, which only froze alone; 
the edges, on cakes of ice which he would cut out and pole across. 
The school closed in the spring with an "exhibition," consist.- 
ing of declamations, dialogues, a little "play," and a spelling 
contest. The whole countryside M'as there, and about thirty of 

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us youngsters Avere put up in the attic, Avhich was floored 
over with loose boards to make room for our elders. The only 
light we had was what percolated up thr(Uigh the cracks, and ail 
that we cuiild s(^e of the exhibition was through them. As we 
hustled around, sampling them to see where we could see beit, 
we made a good deal of disturbance. The best place, next the 
chimney, we Avere driven back from, for repeated burnings had 
ATeakened the su]i])ort. (The beam next to the chimney used 
to catch fire nearly every day, and we younger ones used to 
watch it and report to the teacher, Avho would calmly throw a 
dipper of water up and put the fire out for the time being.) A 
fat woman sat under the dangerous place that evening, and 
made a great outcry if Ave came near to enjoy the desirable 
outlook — stout people ahvays seem fearful that something will 
fall on them. I remember also that her little girl, a pretty 
creature in curls and pink dress, spoke ^'Mary had a little lamb" 
by having it "lined out'' to her. 

Our school house Avas so set in a noble grove of oaks, elm", 
and maples Avith a heaA^y undergTOAvth, that it could not be seen 
from the road. Xearly every day droA'es of cattle Avent by, 
and we used to run up through the thicket to see them. It 
must liaA'e been an odd sight to the droATrs to see a dozen or 
more little half-scared faces peering out of the brush, and no 
building in sight. They Avould often give us a noisy salute, 
whereupon Ave Avould scamper back, telling of our narroAV escape 
from dangerous beasts and men. 

The presidential election in the fall of 1848 aroused a good 
deal of interest, for Wisconsin had uoav become a state and citi- 
zens could A'^ote for national candidates. I Avas in Jonathan 
Piper's store one evening, Avith my father, Avhen about a 
dozen men Avere present. A political discussion sprang up and 
groAv hot, and finally a division Avas called for. Tavo or three 
A'oted for Zachary Tayhu', the Whig candidate; one, Mr. Pipev, 
for LeAvis Cass, the Democrat; and the rest for Martin Van 
Buren, Free Soiler. The State went Avith the lone voter, for 
Cass carried it by a small plurality. 

Good health Avas the rule among the hard-Avorking, plain- 

[202] 



Rock River Pioneering 

living pioneers, but plowing up the soil released the poison 
which nature seemed to have put there on guard, and every on-'i 
at one t inie or another came down with the "shakes." Iloweve;-, 
the potent influences of sunshine, quinine, and cholagogue 
speedily won their way, and in a few years malaria had become 
a mere reminiscence. 

In November, 1848, Mr. Ordway induced my parents to movo 
to Beaver Dam, and thus our life in the Rock River country 
came to an end. The splendid primeval forest has now gone, 
and even before we left much of it had been converted into 
log-heaps and burned. Every night scores of fires would gleam 
out where the finest hardwood logs, worth now a king's ransom, 
were being turned into smoke and ashes. Even the mills which 
that grand pioneer, Andrew Hardgrave, had built in 1844, to 
the great i-ejoicing of all the people, are gone, and the river 
flows on over its smooth limestone floor, unvexed as of old. 
But fine brick buildings have taken the place of the old log 
structures, and land brings at least tw^enty times as much per 
acre as then. Who can argue against that logic ? 



14 [ 203 J 



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